Learning the Dance
by pagerunner
Summary: A pivotal event approaches. Alistair isn't quite ready. And Elissa might be less certain about some things than she believed... Set at the end of Dragon Age: Origins, with the wedding and coronation approaching.


Days before the coronation, Elissa found Alistair alone in the palace, practicing.

It wasn't about his speech this time; he'd already rewritten that again and again, muttering and scribbling and tossing crumpled scraps aside, and occasionally interrupting himself with imprecations Elissa would have paid good gold to hear during the actual event. The endless revisions eventually resulted in a fine speech, however, and though he still professed nervousness, and that he'd likely lose his way and start babbling about his uncomfortable ceremonial armor or Lady Arabella's inevitably horrible hair, Elissa assured him that anyone who could memorize the entire Chant of Light should have no trouble with one short speech. ("I might just lapse into that instead out of habit," he said morosely. "Blah blah kingly duty blah Andraste save me blah blah magic is meant to serve man…" She teasingly rapped his knuckles, which he pointed out _did not help._)

But this private rehearsal was not about that speech, nor even the form of the procession, or - as she'd caught whispered hints of, and swiftly ducked away from, lest she spoil it - his wedding vows. No, this was for what came after. Haltingly, while counting to himself, occasionally slipping, then kicking himself in the shin and starting again, Alistair was practicing their first dance.

Elissa, biting back a smile, hid in the doorway to watch.

She'd seen Alistair in a much different sort of dance before, of course. (_More than one sort, actually,_ a sly inner voice said, but she forced herself back to the original thought.) His sword practices at camp were irresistibly compelling; she'd been struck breathless by how something so brutal could be infused with such grace. She could see both the Templar and the Warden in him at those moments, both the righteous power and the dark-edged fury, and the first time she'd joined him for a duel, ostensibly as a friendly challenge, his eyes alone had almost brought her to surrender before their blades even met.

And yes, there was that other sort of dance. In that, he'd learned _exquisite_ technique. It had faltered just a bit, tinged with uncertainty, after… a particular bargain… but he seemed to be coming back to her, warming again at just the right time.

It made all this seem especially precious: the earnestness to it all, the nervousness, the wanting so badly to get it _right._ And the awkwardness reminded her so much of Alistair as he'd been when they first met that it was endearing. Elissa wanted to linger a while and watch, but she could only keep herself silent for so long.

She quietly bolted the door behind her and stepped forward.

"I seem to remember a promise you made," Elissa called, making Alistair stumble. "That you'd be willing to dance me the Remigold. In a dress."

He sputtered, but quickly recovered, even though his cheeks stayed red. "That was a _maybe_. Not a promise."

"I have lots of pretty dresses on hand again," she said blithely. "Some of them I even _like._ Such are the perks of being Ferelden's newest royal-to-be, apparently."

He folded his arms. "They'd never fit across my shoulders, though. And cream does nothing for my complexion."

Elissa sashayed across the floor, that same cream silk riding daringly low on her. The neckline exposed not only soft curves but the gash of a battle scar, which appalled her seamstresses but was entirely her point. _I am a lady and your queen,_ this dress said, as it whispered around her strong legs. _I am a Warden and a rogue. I will outdo you and undo you all in one._

She saw Alistair gulp as she drew near, and smiled. Exactly what she was going for. _Yes, Alistair. This is what you need…._

"Well, I'll have to ensure your clothes at least coordinate with mine," she said aloud, distracting herself by plucking at his simple, well-worn shirt. "We can't possibly be seen to clash."

"You think I know anything about fashion?"

"You certainly know nothing about dancing."

Alistair groaned and turned away a few steps. "I was raised in a _monastery,_" he said. "Dancing only ever came up on a list of terrible, scandalous sins that would brand me as a lech and doom me to an eternity of boils. Big ones. Sister Calanthe said." Elissa snorted while he went on. "The closest we ever got was shuffling along in formation and occasionally bowing. And then I'd hit myself on the head with a book to liven things up, or knock myself out, whichever came first."

"That explains a lot, actually."

"_Very_ funny," he drawled.

"What it doesn't explain," she said more thoughtfully, "is where you picked up the steps you do know."

"Oh." Alistair looked down at his feet, turning one that she could see the deep creases in his shoe. He would have to get used to his new wardrobe one of these days, but he seemed to be refusing it as often as possible. "Well, there used to be parties. At Redcliffe. I was never - I mean, I was too _young_, let alone… but I'd look in, sometimes. The Arlessa was always very elegant. She enjoyed leading the formal dances."

"And you enjoyed watching her?"

"She'd actually _smile._" He still sounded amazed. "I found it morbidly fascinating."

"I never enjoyed dances myself," Elissa admitted. "I was forced to learn every one in the book. My mother" - her voice hitched, but she forged on - "insisted upon it. And I had to study with Fergus, which was dreadful."

Alistair's lips quirked. "I imagine a brother wouldn't make the best partner."

"He dragged his feet on purpose and clumped along like a bronto most of the time," she said, hearing her own teenage complaints in her voice. Alistair smiled. "He liked it all even less than I did. I'm sure he sabotaged our lessons to spite our instructor - or me, just because I was there. One day he smashed my little toe on a bad step. I'm still not sure if it was by accident. He has _promised_ not to do it at our ceremony, but if he manages it anyway I swear I will break his nose. Again."

Alistair laughed. "I think I should be fearing for my life, then, because your toes, my lady, are once again in peril."

Unbidden, she remembered the sensation of his fingertips stroking the arch of her foot. "I thought you liked my feet as they were."

His voice went husky. "Oh, I do."

"Then we shall have to do something about this." She stood up straight - at a safe distance - readying herself. "Which dance was it you were trying to do?"

He looked sheepish. "I don't even know the name. I used to see it at the spring festivals..."

"Well, they probably won't be playing it for us, then, unless the musicians get clever and turn all fertility-rite suggestive on us. Which they might." She grimaced; he looked mildly horrified. "But what's more likely is that they'd begin with a simple, slow pairs dance, with only you and me on the floor-"

"Oh, Maker," he sighed.

"-and move into the Grand Exchange so that all the nobles may join us. As many can fit onto the floor without crashing into each other or the walls, in any case."

"I expect I'll be the first."

"And after that," she said, beginning to enjoy herself, "are the party dances. We'll be expected to participate in at least one."

"You're having me on, aren't you? Doesn't the king get to bow out of humiliating himself at his own function?"

Elissa took one of his hands in hers, lifted it to the proper angle, and settled his other on her hip. She felt his indrawn breath, and the radiating heat of his skin; the fabric of her dress was very thin indeed. "It's not all so bad," she murmured, letting her fingertips light upon his arm.

"Perhaps not," he said hoarsely.

"But we can't get ahead of ourselves," she said, despite rather wanting to. She tugged him gently to the right. He followed, in charming inverse of the rules, looking dazed. "You at least need to be ready for the opening dance. You've mastered more complicated footwork than this for fighting, so you'll be fine. Just remember you're _not_ actually still in battle and shouldn't, say, decapitate me on the first turn."

A sardonic tone settled in as he endeavored not to step on her feet. "Don't behead the queen on her wedding day. Right. Should be easy to remember."

A strange thrill ran up Elissa's spine: _the queen, on her wedding day._ It was a strangely powerful thing to say: for all the significance of his coronation, this day was about her as well. She thought for a moment of all the things she'd chosen, all the things they'd done and gained and sacrificed to get here….

"Ah," said Alistair knowingly. "I'm not the only one with nerves, am I? I saw that look."

She tried to shut down her expression before it betrayed anything more. "I'm fine," she said. "_You're_ moving much too fast, you know."

"It's difficult without music."

"I'm sure you've heard one of these pieces before, though. If you used to listen in."

He glanced toward the ceiling in thought, but didn't stumble. He was easing into the movements as he went. "Maybe. It's been so long, though. I feel like it was another lifetime."

Elissa imagined the hall at Highever where she first learned the court dances, with her family watching, well-paid tutors quietly enduring her, servants close at hand… well, servants were close at hand again these days, but after so long fending for herself, she felt guilty making even the slightest request. Another lifetime, indeed.

She suddenly wondered what her best-remembered tutor would think of her now.

"Oh, my," Alistair murmured suddenly. "You're blushing. What _are_ you thinking of?"

She didn't recall stopping, but somehow they were standing very still, and then she was carefully, slyly beginning to smile again. She hadn't intended to bring this up, or to teach him _this_ particular set of moves - but suddenly she could think of many compelling reasons to try. So she leaned in, and gave him a teasing smile.

"I didn't learn _all_ my dances in the proper way, you know," she said.

"Ooh. Improper dances, is it? And you haven't shared?"

Elissa stepped back and gestured for him to hold his position. "It _began_ properly enough. But then someone besides my dance instructor stepped in." She let that one hang, enjoying the play of his expression. "As I said… dancing isn't that far removed from swordplay, after all."

He took a guess, and tilted it suggestively. "A… sparring partner?"

"Our swordsmaster." She circled Alistair as she spoke, enjoying the view even as her memories presented the competition. "He came from the Anderfels. He'd been hired to help train my brother. I was fascinated by him - what else could I have been, I was seventeen…." She laughed softly at herself. "But I couldn't do anything right by him. I was a girl; he thought I shouldn't aspire to be a warrior. I preferred my daggers to a sword; he thought they were children's toys. I pushed my way into a lesson one day and he picked my technique to shreds. But I couldn't let it go. I wanted to prove him wrong."

Alistair didn't move, except to arch an eyebrow at her. "How did that go?"

"Not well." Elissa's mouth creased upwards. "Until my dance instructor decided to teach me The Dance of the Snows."

"That's from the Anderfels, too," Alistair murmured. "I think I've seen it."

"Then you know it begins on bended knee?"

Alistair gave her a speculative look. She stared back in challenge. Slowly, he took the hint and went to one knee on the floor of the vast, empty hall. Elissa took one look around to ensure absolutely they were alone. Nothing stirred. She shut her eyes a moment, then kept going.

"I told him I'd learned it," she said, moving closer to Alistair. "I said I had a golden opportunity for him to criticize me in his area of expertise. I practically made it a dare." She clasped Alistair's upraised hand, stepping into the opening position of the dance. "So he upped the ante."

As soon as she'd begun it, she broke the pattern by lifting her left foot, bracing it atop Alistair's knee, and guiding his hand unexpectedly down, beneath the soft waves of fabric and along the length of her calf. He swallowed at the touch, then at what he found: the tiny dagger strapped to her leg.

"We'd dance, all right," she said. "But we'd do it his way."

Alistair's gaze lifted to hers. His expression was changing; the awkwardness had vanished, the sarcasm was gone, and what was settling over him now reminded her of the intense moments before battle - or before bed. "Show me."

She guided his hand to draw the blade out, scraping it ever so lightly against her skin. She saw it glitter in his hand when he pulled it free. Then she stepped back down, posed demurely again as if she were about to turn a simple pirouette to meet him as he rose.

Instead she swept out in a deadly arc, snatched her second blade from its sheath, and met him braced arm to arm in a breathless collision.

"Here I thought," Alistair gasped, pushing back against her in _just_ the right way, "we were going to _avoid_ decapitations…."

She laughed and pivoted away.

"Then come to me." She gestured teasingly with the blade. "Three steps forward until we meet, hands outstretched, one full turn to the right…."

Still tensed, he took one stealthy pace toward her, then another. On the third step, instead of taking her hands like the dance dictated, he snatched her up against him, the flat of his blade pressed close against her spine.

Her own knife met its mark at the same moment, its point pressing just against the underside of his chin.

They stood there for a long moment, trembling with the effort not to move. A sly smile had begun to creep over Alistair's face. Oh, he _was_ learning, and learning fast.

"How does the music go?" he murmured, that sideways smile so close to her own lips. Elissa wetted them with the tip of her tongue, watching his eyes follow the movement.

"I never claimed to be a singer..."

The knife at her back tilted in, just a fraction. "For me."

Feeling her heart hammer in her chest - almost in tempo with the quickening beat of his own - she thought hard, and remembered a similar drumbeat. It was soft but insistent under a whirling melody, meant to suggest the spinning winds. One hand tapped out the rhythm as she began to hum - softly at first, but then with growing confidence as she raised it to full, wordless voice.

Alistair sighed and slipped back, letting her knife scrape faintly against his skin until he was out of its range. "That's beautiful," he said.

She wanted to snort at him, tell him he was being a ridiculous flatterer, but that would have broken the song, so she kept at it, reaching out to pull him into another spin instead.

They barely touched this time. Their blades were held safely away, but the tension was sliding ever higher nevertheless. She could hear every breath he made, the sounds of their steps as she tried to wordlessly guide him, and the falter in her own voice when he touched her bare shoulder; it made him smile. Then she turned away from him, as the dance dictated, nearly breathless, but still singing.

He hadn't forgotten the knife in his hand.

So swiftly she could have mistaken him for a rogue himself, he reached out to hold her fast as his blade flicked out to cut the first of her laces. The fabric buckled in front, and he pressed forward against her to feel the note in her throat dissolve to a moan.

Having taken control, he quickly pressed his advantage.

"This swordsmaster," he murmured, while one hand crept around her. "He was your first, wasn't he?"

Elissa's head spun, even as her body warmed. She wasn't about to give too much away - not how exhilarating and terrifying it had been, how his mouth had tasted and his fingers felt upon her. He _hadn't_ taken her fully in the end, ordering her away before he could do something so unforgivable as lose control, but _oh,_ what it had done to her. She could feel it still.

He'd left the next day, leaving everyone but her bewildered, and her heartbroken.

So he was _almost_ her first. Almost. But since then, Alistair had been her only. And some tiny part of her, the part that knew she was no longer _his_ only….

She wanted to make him jealous in return.

"Ladies don't kiss and tell," she breathed, and pressed back against the knife's point - twisting her hips as she did, to press harder against his obvious erection. Alistair hissed out a breath and flicked the knife again, snapping one more tie on her dress. It drew a drop of blood this time on the release, leaving a sweet, flaring sting.

"So there _was_ kissing."

"Perhaps."

His voice was dropping, going rougher. "And you _wanted_ to remember him, with this?"

She reached back, tracing her knife up and down his thigh with ever-so-slightly shaky fingers. "Maybe….."

The dress slid further down, and his hand followed, sliding down to stroke her breast and then seize with possessive force. She arched into the touch, gasping. "You're _mine_ now, Elissa," he said. "And I yours. And I don't want anyone else coming between us. Ever again."

The last word made her shake uncontrollably, because she'd heard the way his voice had cracked - being this close, _so_ very close, it was impossible not to tell what was meant. She'd succeeded in what she intended, almost too well. There was pain in that, too, and maybe she'd misjudged….

She tried to turn, but he wouldn't let her go.

"Everything," he whispered. "We're about to promise everything. Say you're with me. Say we're together in this."

She couldn't manage so many words, not with his touch like this, his breath on her skin, an insistent throb of need making her knees go weak. But what he was saying mattered too much to ignore. He meant their marriage, their rule, this strange new world they'd stepped into… _everything_. She suddenly realized she hadn't really known the meaning of "exhilarating and terrifying" that first time. In Alistair's arms, she did.

Her head tipped back and turned toward his, and she prayed it was enough when "Always" fell from her lips.

His knife clattered free as he curved down to meet her in a kiss.

They twisted together, both of them seemingly desperate to touch as much of each other as they could. His hands were everywhere. Elissa, still holding her blade, could only hold on, trying not to slip - and when it caught the collar of his shirt, it was almost by accident. The first button flew away, pinging on the hard surface of the floor.

Alistair's head tilted back in a silent gasp, his throat working hard. Elissa bent to kiss him there while she made another, more deliberate cut. All the breath left him in a guttural moan.

"Wicked woman," he managed on the intake. "I happen to like this shirt."

"And I liked my dress." She shimmied out of what was left of it, leaving it behind in a silken pool as she pushed Alistair down to the floor. "Meanwhile, this… is hardly fit clothing for a king."

"New proclamation. The king can wear whatever he damn well pleases."

She bent closer, trailing the knife down his chest until it met the last attached button. His hips shifted deliciously beneath hers. "And what does the king choose to wear right now?"

He shuddered. "Nothing… at all."

His hand joined hers when she slashed open what was left of the shirt, twisting so that the edge caught his skin. He arched up, eyes squeezed shut, with pain and erotic tension mingled on his face. Elissa couldn't help herself; she bent down to drag her tongue across the wound, soothing and inflaming it all at once. His hand clutched desperately in her hair; the string of curses and gasps that spilled out of him was intoxicating.

Then she carefully, oh so carefully, worked off his trousers and the last of what they wore, trailing kisses teasingly across him in the process. He watched her hungrily as she slid back up to face him, trembling all the while.

"Satisfied, my king?" she breathed into his mouth. He took the knife from her and cast it away.

"Almost," he said. His hands slid down her body, guiding her into place. "Almost…."

"Then take what you will," she whispered, and he moved without hesitation, a single word on his lips.

When they both cried out moments later, she was amazed it didn't bring the entire palace down upon them.

After all, she considered - once she _could_ think again, a long while later - this was not truly the best place to have done this. For one thing, the floor was cold and hard beneath them at the end, and she wanted, once the chilly air registered again, to reach for a blanket and curl up more comfortably. But for a while, they held onto each other regardless. Alistair's breathing took a long time to steady itself; he seemed to find his rhythm by following hers, and by stroking her hair back in slow, repeated gestures. She shifted gently against him, feeling the urge to purr.

"Um," he said at last. "That might not… be the _best_ dance to do in public."

Elissa laughed and stretched out straighter, tracing one hand across his chest. "I'm a terrible teacher."

"Horrible," he agreed, and drew her close for a long, delirious kiss. She could hardly marshal her thoughts again when it was done, which made it difficult to answer when he withdrew to speak again, his eyes slowly going serious.

"I have to know," he said. "Did you mean it… when you said _always_?"

She went still, then reached up, gently touching his mouth with two fingers. She didn't know if she meant to hush him before he could say anything more, or just to feel him, to anchor this moment in her memory. She may have had ulterior motives with this game, but what it had become was too important. If anything, she'd proven it to herself: this was all that mattered.

"Yes," she said, on a soft sigh.

"It's all so close now…."

"I know."

He twined his fingers into hers. slowly bringing them down to rest above his heart again. Then he shut his eyes. "I am _not_ ready," he whispered.

Elissa laid there silently a while, feeling her hip beginning to hurt, not to mention her head. Then she chuckled as she decided what to say. He peered at her. "I'm that hopeless a case, am I?"

She shook her head. "In fact, we've just proven again why you'll succeed."

"Oh?"

"Put you on the edge of a blade… and you do your best work."

He answered her smile first with incredulousness, and then a low, deep laugh that reverberated all the way through her. "That so?"

"Absolutely."

"What a way to live."

She kissed him on the nose. "It could be worse."

"It could be without you," he said softly. "That would definitely be worse."

Warmth spread through her, and the answering look in his eyes was, for a moment, almost too perfect to bear. Then he winced at last as he tried to move. "All right," he said. "I have to get off this floor. Except…"

"What?"

Propped halfway up, with Elissa still straddling him, Alistair looked rather helplessly at the wreckage of their clothes. "How _are_ we getting out of here, exactly?"

"Oh, Maker." Elissa found herself snickering. "We are going to start so _many_ terrible rumors…."

"Then I suppose we might as well enjoy them," he said.

And with a slow-blossoming grin, he gave her his shirt, reaching for what was left of her dress instead.

Elissa felt herself laughing like she hadn't in years. As some of the shades over her heart finally receded, she knew that despite all that was and could have been, she'd never want to have this any other way


End file.
